Case studies

A fire in one of our properties that started in a drying machine in the utility room adjacent to the kitchen was made worse by the fact that the kitchen door had been removed allowing smoke to travel throughout the building causing smoke damage to all the rooms in the house.

Learning points:

• You need to get permission from Derby Homes to remove any doors and consider what the impact would be if you had a fire. (Section 4.2 of the tenancy agreement)
• A night time routine of closing all doors, especially those downstairs, will give you a greater escape time if a fire should happen.

Had this happened at night the outcome could have been much worse as the stairs would have been unusable due to the smoke and heat.

A shed that had electrics fitted to it running from a plug socket in the house and powering a fridge and microwave caught fire due to an electrical fault. The shed was approximately two meters from the building, but the fire spread from the shed to the building through the broken kitchen window which had been broken by heat of the fire. The fire also caused damage to the neighbour’s windows.

Learning points:

• Consider carefully where you want to place your shed; six meters or more will reduce the chance of the fire spreading to adjacent properties.
• Any electrical work must be carried out by a fully qualified electrician; Derby Homes must give you permission to do the work. (Section 5 of the tenancy agreement)
• This incidents could have been a lot worse if the residents had been at home and asleep, due to the smoke entering the building.